


but you had to go (i know, i know, i know)

by matsuhanasss



Category: The Hollow (Cartoon)
Genre: ????? idk i feel like this so i word vomited onto kai, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Angst, Depression, Heavy Angst, M/M, Metaphor Heavy, Metaphors, No Dialogue, Swimming Pools, Vague References to Suicide, and all those metaphors are about death luvs, its nearly five am, rated teen for the sheer amount of times i talk about death., someones gonna tell me im depressed and im gonna be like "commentor u just might be onto something", this was going to be about something else but i am just. so empty lol, very very sad
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-19
Updated: 2020-06-19
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:28:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 840
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24803905
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matsuhanasss/pseuds/matsuhanasss
Summary: kai thinks about drowning and everything this life means.
Relationships: Adam/Kai (The Hollow)
Comments: 8
Kudos: 61





	but you had to go (i know, i know, i know)

**Author's Note:**

> uhhh hey.
> 
> i want to start this note with the fact i have two _very_ big projects in the works. if you follow my sister, or even scroll in the hollow art tag, on instagram, you will see we're collaborating on a battle of the bands au. i'm working on it, i promise, but i want it to be fantastic just for you guys so it's taking time. 
> 
> thanks for understanding.
> 
> and i want to say, this is heavily projected. i haven't been feeling fantastic mentally for like a month or two now lol. how kai feels is literally how i feel and i know you can tell. so i just though i'd outright say it.
> 
> thank you for the support, genuinely. it means so much to me.
> 
> title is from i know the end by phoebe bridgers. you listen to it [here](https://open.spotify.com/track/3cr3oAP4bQFNjZBV7ElKaB?si=9bW_-OQrRiC9PyVP3FaW3A)

Kai thinks letting the water fill his lungs is a better idea than breaking the surface.

But then he thinks too hard about his friends and maybe the fact that Mom would be sad. Thinks about his boyfriend. Only when his chest feels like it's going to cave in on itself because of his lack of oxygen does he break the surface of the water, spluttering and coughing. He half expects Adam to come and swim by him, patting and rubbing his back softly as he whispers to Kai; Adam isn’t there, though. Kai’s got the backyard to himself. 

He floats on his back in the expansive, too big pool. Kai knows that he’ll be burned to hell tomorrow, but at this point he thinks he’s just doing it to feel something. Anything. He’s been in the pool for hours, shrivelled up like a prune and skin turning red. When he finally gets out of the pool, he wants to claw his skin off with how much it burns. Instead, though, he’ll put aloe vera on it and sleep on his back tonight. 

No matter how hard he tries, he still feels so, so empty. He doesn’t know why it never seems to get better.

Kai picks at his already chipping red nail polish as he walks into the house, his mind only set on finding the aloe for his burning skin. But at the same time, if he doesn’t find the aloe, the burning on his skin will continue and he’ll actually be feeling something. No more emptiness; no more feeling like he’s some hollow shell of himself. A plane on autopilot, but this time because the pilot died.

Never in his life more has he wished his mother were here to hold him. Never in his life has he felt more alone.

Even then, Kai doesn’t think it would mean anything. Where has she been almost all his life? Gone. Gone, gone gone. Or she’s been fighting with his father, overlooking Kai completely. It’s the reason he talks so much when he’s around his friends; a symptom of being ignored all his life. But because he talks so much, he thinks he’s too annoying for anyone to love, and then he spirals. He spirals to where he is now: empty and alone. Detached from himself and the world around him. 

Every day he wakes up, looks at his clock, and wonders if the day is really even worth his time.

Living is just something he was pushed into doing, and now he feels like he’s gone and fucked it up. Like he hasn’t lived enough. In retrospect, though, Kai thinks that he will always think he’s never lived enough, no matter what he does. He goes to the kitchen, lying down on the cool tile, pressing his cheek onto it. The cool of the tile soothes the burn of his skin and he decides he’ll go find the aloe vera. 

He hasn’t checked his phone in hours. 

Kai used to not do that. He used to check his phone all the time and when his friends didn’t answer within minutes, thoughts festered into his head and ate his brain. All they said was that his friends hated him and that he was useless—a non-important player in group activities. Unneeded. Hateful brain rot that sat with him for far too long and far too often. Things he never learned how to properly deal with. 

He thinks about his parents fighting. They’re always so loud, too loud all the time. When they get too loud, down the hall in their bedroom, Kai still corners himself in his closet, shoving his headphones over his ears and softly singing to his music. He would always max the volume out, making sure there was no way the screaming match would bleed it’s way into his ears.

He wants to listen to music now, but it’s so much work to even get his phone and turn the music on. It’s so much work to move from where he’s laid himself up in his bed now, wrapped in too many blankets and holding his pillow. He feels like he could stay there for days, unmoving.

He just wants to feel something. Anything. 

Kai wants to wake up and feel alive—not like every other smile he’s plastering on his face is like a sedative. At this point, it’s even too draining to pretend. It’s too draining to do anything. He sits, he stands, he lays, he swims; all the while, he feels nothing. It’s like his innards have been gutted—his organs gone to donation and bones already six feet under. But he’s still there. Empty and on autopilot. He desperately wants the pilot to wake up—remember, the pilot is dead—because the plane is going to crash, but the pilot never wakes. And that’s how Kai feels. Like the pilot, never waking. 

Like all he will ever know is how to be empty. To feel nothing and feel like he deserves nothing.

**Author's Note:**

> follow me on tumblr [@bloodyknuckles](https://bloodyknuckles.tumblr.com)


End file.
